


Realization

by triggerlil



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Astronomy, Astronomy Tower, HP - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-24 10:13:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6150265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/triggerlil/pseuds/triggerlil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Draco's an insomniac, and the stars are up all night, so he might as well look at them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The First Everything

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this in grade 9 to study for my science exam, I just found it and actually thought it was pretty good so now I'm posting it. Kudos/Comment/Just let me know what you thought please I'm desperate for interaction on my work

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (At first I had this set up as a bunch of small chapters, but I thought it might be easier on the eyes to turn it into one big chapter, if you have an opinion on it please feel free to comment)

Draco ran a hand through his normally immaculate hair. _Shit._ He was bloody fucked. Another swipe through his hair, and loose strands began falling in front of his face. _Fuck._

“Draco?” Pansy asked, staring up from her toast. Draco’s inner monologue came to an abrupt halt, and the roaring of the dining hall rushed back into his ears. He glanced down at the half eaten breakfast in front of him, and then looked back up at Pansy’s creased forehead.

“It’s nothing.” He quipped, hoping that the return of his usual manner would soothe any of Pansy’s suspicions. God, he hated _feelings._

* * *

The drapes of Draco’s four poster bed hung around him, they were made of thick fabric and seemed to block out the entire world. Normally it would reassure him, like a warm hug or some such disgusting metaphor, but tonight the closed quarters felt oddly suffocating. Draco quietly pushed the drapes aside, getting out of his bed and putting on his robe; he took fairy light steps past Blaise’s sleeping form and left the dorms. In the common room he paced in circles for a short while, hoping that would ease this bout of insomnia, but he just succeeded in making himself feel more restless.

In the dungeons Draco payed close attention to the cracks in the walls and the various paintings. He stopped by a painting where a pair of wolves were pacing in a midnight field, and watched as they howled to a moon far-out of view.

He kept circling, going through hallway after hallway and looking through room after vacated room. Until quite unexpectedly he was at the top of the astronomy tower. No one really went to the astronomy tower anymore, but Draco found it quite peaceful at night, and knew that Filch rarely came around here. As Draco looked over the balcony and out at the stars, he wondered why he didn't come here more often when he couldn't sleep; he went back to his dorm a short while after that, feeling properly relaxed.

* * *

The next time Draco couldn’t fall asleep he went straight to the astronomy tower, pulling a book of the known constellations off one of the various shelves. He spent that night learning about Aquila, Aries, Cassiopeia, Cygnus, Gemini, Leo, Pisces, Scorpius, Taurus, Ursa Major, and Ursa Minor.

The consecutive night Draco tried to _spot_ those constellations that he had read about. He successfully spotted Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, but couldn’t name the red star and the very bright blue tinted star. When he came back the following night, he scoured books for mentions of stars that were brighter than average, or of slight abnormal coloring. Finally, just before he was planning on going back to the dorms, he found a section in a book, _A Photographic Atlas of Selected Regions of the Milky Way by Edward Emerson Barnard_ , he found mention of a list of planets that you could see with your naked eye. Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, and Saturn. It turned out that the red star was actually the planet Mars, and the blue tinted star was actually the planet Venus. The next night he came back and began searching for all the other planets with a telescope he had found in a far-off corner of the tower. It was silver, with different Latin words engraved into the rim. He didn’t bother reading them, he was much too busy reading the stars.

Soon the nights spent at the astronomy tower began taking their toll, Draco found himself drifting off during meals, and the dark circles under his eyes really didn’t do anything for his looks. Instead, they were accentuated by his pale skin, light hair, and grey eyes. Pansy began fussing over him, bombarding him with various dreamless sleep potions and other concoctions that would supposedly allow him a good nights rest. Crabbe and Goyle didn’t seem to notice, after all they were always too busy stuffing their faces to really notice anything at all, and Blaise, like Blaise, didn’t do anything other than throw sidelong glances Draco’s way every now and then.

* * *

After another night of routinely cataloguing the sky, which Draco had come to doing quite diligently, he found himself making critical mistakes in potions. Snape had said _Dark Root_ , not _Dragon Soot_. And it might have been Draco’s imagination, (although it might not have been) but he was pretty sure that Potter to was taking quick, quizzical looks of him. Was his lack of sleep really that noticeable? And had Potter gotten a little more aggressive lately? Or was that just Draco’s sleep deprivation?

“Isn’t this supposed to be your forte Malfoy?” Potter scoffed, which honestly, Draco didn’t know Potter could do.

“Back off you prick.” Draco snapped back, and Potter didn’t reply, but it hadn’t really felt like a win because Draco had noticed a smirk playing on Potter’s face.

* * *

_The Pleiades is a star cluster that is also known as “the Seven Sisters.” There are many stories surrounding the Pleiades, but a popular tale is that one day in Ancient Greece the seven sisters, who were the daughters of Atlas and Pleione, were relaxing and talking together under the night sky. Orion came upon the gathering of beautiful maidens, and was overcome by a horrible and violent lust; he began chasing after the seven sisters, and the sisters were frightened by Orion, so they in turn ran from him. This chase went on for eons, until Zeus took pity on the tired sisters, and turned them into wonderful white doves. The sisters flew far, far away from Orion, until they were just stars in the night sky._


	2. The Second Everything

Draco had finished off an entire parchment book with his mappings of the night sky. He had drawn the various constellations, his notes about the way the stars moved, and a thousand other things. Astronomy was such a vast subject that Draco doubt he’d ever be able to learn it all. Indeed there were things that were out there that he couldn’t see. Sometimes it all made him feel very, very, small. He lived on Earth, one of the eight planets, and Earth was located in the Solar System, which was in the Milky Way Galaxy. The Milky Way was part of the Local Group, and the Local Group was part of the Virgo Supercluster. After that? Well there were probably repeats of things just like the Virgo Supercluster, which had their own Earths and Suns and Pleiades.

* * *

Draco learned that the way the Earth moved and is situated explained a lot of things that happen, things that he took for granted before. It takes exactly 365 1/4 days for the Earth to orbit the Sun, and that’s a year. It takes 24 hours for the Earth to make a full rotation from west to east, that’s a day. The Earth also has something that’s called an “axis of rotation.” If you imagine a line going through each object in the solar system that stretches from pole to pole and out into space in both directions, that’s an axial tilt. The Sun has one, and so does the Earth. When you compare the line of the Sun’s axial tilt to that of the Earth’s, you get an angle, and that angle is the Earth’s axial tilt away from the Sun’s axis of rotation, and it’s a measure of 23.5 degrees.

The Earth’s north pole is always pointed towards the same star in the sky – Polaris. So the Earth orbits around the sun, and the various parts of the Earth get more or less sunlight. And that’s how some places have summer, and others winter. If the Earth didn’t tilt, there would be no seasons. Draco catalogues all this, draws diagrams, and has to hand it to the Muggles who made these discoveries, they’re pretty fucking smart.

* * *

Draco eventually stopped going to the astronomy tower every other night, he went _every_ night. He couldn’t seem to get a grip on his strange obsession with the stars. Every time he left, he told himself he wouldn’t go back again, that he was done. It was fun, but it’s over, he can’t live like this. And then he’ll lie awake in bed, telling himself that if he just stays there long enough he’ll go to sleep and stop worrying about those bloody stars, but before he can reconsider he’ll be climbing up the spiral staircase to the astronomy tower, already wondering what sort of things will have made themselves clear tonight. Whether it’s cloudy yet, and what new books he will find.

So when Draco woke up, slipped out of bed to the tower, and began his obsessive search of the skies, he almost didn’t notice a rustling of robes behind him.

“Enjoying the night air Malfoy?” Potter mused, and Draco whipped around, knocking over his latest pile of books and also not seeing Potter anywhere. Even though he was positive he had heard his voice.

“Invisibility cloak dumbass.” Potter laughed, and Draco wanted to curse him into oblivion. Because of course, that fucking cloak.

“What are you doing here?” Draco spat, rushing to hide his latest set of diagrams. A collection of the different types of stars: black dwarf, red giant, white dwarf, that kind of thing.

“You’ve come out here for the past month, probably more, and you don’t expect me to figure out you’re up to something?”

“Maybe I would have been up to something any other time, but for once I’m not, and I’d like you to mind your own bloody business. Besides, since when did you watch my every move?” Draco paused.  “You’re so fucking obsessed with me.”

“Shut up. You’re the son of a Death Eater, how can I not be suspicious?”

“I don’t know!? By having at least a speck of trust in me? Maybe by wondering if I’m really like my father?”

Potter didn’t reply right away. He just stood there, invisibility cloak hanging off one shoulder, and wand hanging limply at his side.

“You never really gave me a reason to believe otherwise.” Potter mumbled, and Draco wanted to hear it again, just so that he could make sure he wasn’t dreaming.

“I didn’t hear you Potter, speak up please?”

“You always lived up to the snotty brat image I had for you. You never gave me reason to believe there was anything else, although that didn’t stop me from hoping there was someone behind that prick demeanor of yours, but by the time I wanted to know, it was too hard to start.”

Now it was Draco’s turn to fall silent, because Harry Potter wanted to get to know him better. Harry fucking Potter wanted to learn about him, Harry Potter wanted to be ... What? Stars twinkled behind him, Potter stood before him. A breeze blew through Draco’s bed hair.

“You wanker.” Draco smiled, and Draco would smile at Potter a thousand times over if he could see that reaction again. “Do you want to see what I’ve been up to lately, might be too scary for you though.”

“Fucking try me, Malfoy.”

So Draco spent the rest of that night, not alone in the astronomy tower, but with Harry Potter in the astronomy tower. Talking about space and learning things too, because Harry _had_ gone to muggle school for seven years. The moon illuminated Draco’s books, and every time he glanced up he found himself captivated not by Gemini or Taurus, but by the way the dim glow lit up Harry’s face. How his eyes were a deep green that Draco had noticed before, but never seen up close. Draco found himself obsessed with something other than the stars for once, and when their hands brushed, neither pulled away.

 


	3. The Third & Final Everything

The first time Draco kissed Harry Potter stars exploded behind his eyes. He couldn't stop thinking about how soft Harry's lips felt, how maybe this was all he had ever wanted.

* * *

The second time Draco kissed Harry Potter, it was more like the first time Draco made out with Harry Potter. And Draco couldn't stop grabbing Harry's scruffy hair, he couldn't stop acting very un-Malfoy ish.

* * *

The third time Draco Malfoy kissed Harry Potter, or made out, Draco couldn’t stop thinking about how having a crush on the boy who lived was the opposite of fucking up. It was, in every way, the opposite of what he thought it would be.

* * *

_Orihime, daughter of Tentei the Sky King, wove beautiful clothes by the bank of the Milky Way. Orihime worked very hard to weave beautiful clothes because she knew how much her father loved them, but she was also sad because she worked constantly and had no chance of falling in love. Her father did care for her though, and so he arranged for her to meet with Hikoboshi; who herded the stars through the night sky. When Orihime and Hikoboshi met, they instantly fell in love, and married shortly after. But because Orihime was so in love with Hikoboshi, she no longer wove beautiful clothes for her father, and this made him jealous and angry. Tentei separated the two lovers across the Milky Way, and forbade them from ever meeting. Orihime cried and cried, her tears fell into space creating many new stars, and her father was moved by her tears and allowed Orihime and Hikoboshi to meet on the 7th day of the 7th month if she worked hard and finished her weaving. However, when Orihime and Hikoboshi went to meet, they realized they could not cross the Milky Way for there was no bridge, and a flock of magpies took pity and lay their wings down so the two lovers could cross. And so the stars Vega and Altair were able to meet once more._


End file.
